Society

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

Jeremy Clarke’s date with a plank fancier

We’d being trying to meet for lunch for weeks, but always something had got in the way and either she or I had had to cancel. But at long last we’d managed it, and after two pleasant hours we emerged from the fish restaurant and made our way along the sea front towards the car park, still marvelling at the achievement. We hadn’t gone far when she noticed two planks leaning against a wall. They were six by twos, each about 2ft long. The sight of these planks seemed to cause her to lose the ballerina’s poise that she’d maintained throughout lunch. She became agitated and started hopping from foot

Melissa Kite

Melissa Kite’s fraught relationship with printers

Blind panic grips me at the thought that all over Britain there are people sitting in cosy home offices operating gizmos with ease. I imagine I am the only person alive who can’t print out something from an email without getting in my car and driving to a small shop with no name on Streatham High Road, where a monosyllabic gentleman in Islamic dress will allow me to log on to one of his ancient reconditioned desktop computers and send the document I want to print to his printer, and who will then slap the few stray sheets down on the counter with a look of disdain and ask me

Alexander Chancellor

A dog mess or two is not too high a price to pay for an owner’s happiness

A month ago I was reporting complacently that peace and calm had returned to Stoke Park after a series of bestial attacks on my chickens and ducklings by foxes and birds of prey. No foxes had come to call since the spring, and seven of the eight Indian runner ducks hatched here in September had survived and grown big enough to deter avian predators. All seemed to be well in this little corner of south Northamptonshire. The hens seemed contented and were laying copiously in gratitude; the ducks were gliding dreamily on the pond. But my complacency was premature, for last weekend turmoil returned. This had nothing to do with

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 31 October 2013

I love Bernard Teltscher. In fact, I proposed to him recently, but he politely declined, saying I was too old for him! He is 92 so I could be forgiven for thinking I was in with a chance. Bernard has sponsored the Lederer Memorial Trophy, England’s premier Invitational Teams’ Tournament, for as long as anyone can remember, and this year his own President’s Team won by a country mile. We played at the very posh RAC club, and in his acceptance speech Bernard said that he had played bridge for over 82 years and was still learning. But this hand, featuring a classic Show Up Squeeze, proves he’s still got

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Food: Heston’s brown Dinner, with a side order of irritation

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, a brown cavern in the Mandarin Oriental hotel, Knightsbridge, has won a second Michelin star. These stars are food ‘Oscars’ (Hollywood has eaten everything, despite its tendency to despise food) and ensure that wealthy Americans make a detour to dine beneath the stars. This new elevation means that Blumenthal, at least technically, is Britain’s finest cook; the Meryl Streep of dripping and sweat. Blumenthal is a historian chef, a successor to the celebrity chef; he is an intellectual. I say this not because he wears spectacles but because his website has a dictionary definition of dinner — ‘A formal evening meal, typically one in honour of a

Dot Wordsworth

The week in words: ‘Pull & Bear’ is all style, no substance

‘This’ll make you laugh,’ said my husband, sounding like George V commenting on an Impressionist painting. ‘Someone in the Telegraph says that the French shouldn’t borrow English words.’ Once I had managed to wrest the paper from his dog-in-the-manger grasp, I found it didn’t quite say that, but rather that foreigners ought not to plaster advertisements and clothing with English words if they didn’t know their meaning. I had been thinking something similar. The example that had been annoying me was the name of a medium-trendy Spanish clothing chain, Pull & Bear, which has been spreading over Spain like Chalara fraxinea in England. At first I thought it was meant

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: Should I thrust my backside at other people in the theatre?

Q. I am no interior decorator, but we have a couple of rather subtle paint colours in the house that I picked out of a Dulux colour sheet and they have both been a success. I would be grateful if you could suggest a slight put-down to those visitors who ask which Farrow and Ball paint I have used. — Name and address withheld A. A put-down would be inappropriate in the current climate. You clearly do not realise that, all over Notting Hill, billionaire women are triumphantly shrieking ‘Zara!’ and ‘Top Shop!’ when asked where their winter coats are from. Inconspicuous consumption is the new black and boasting about

Alexander Waugh

Alexander Waugh’s diary: Shakespeare was a nom de plume — get over it

Researching a new book on Shakespeare’s sonnets, I stumbled upon an astonishing piece of hitherto unnoticed evidence in a 16th-century book by a sex-maniac clergyman from Cambridge. I shall not bore you with the details; suffice it to say that William Covell (the author and S-MC in question) revealed in words not especially ambiguous by Elizabethan standards that ‘Shakespeare’ was a nom de plume used by the courtier poet Edward de Vere. Now a lot of people have been saying this for a very long time — so stale buns to that, you may think — except that no one has yet noticed that the matter was revealed in a

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Charles Moore’s notes: It’s great there’s a World Islamic Economic Forum — now can we have a Jewish one?

As I write, the World Islamic Economic Forum is opening in London, the first time it has been held in a non-Muslim country. David Cameron boasts that investors will now be able to buy sharia-compliant British gilts. If the forum helps Muslim countries share their commercial expertise with one another and the rest of us, well and good. But should modes of global commerce be defined by religious allegiance? What would the conspiracy theorists say about a World Jewish Economic Forum? How would Saudi Arabia — or even Dubai — react to the suggestion of a World Christian Economic Forum taking place within its borders?  And once it is officially proclaimed a

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 31 October 2013

Home A storm passed over England, with plenty of warning. The strongest gust, of 99mph, was recorded at Needles Old Battery, Isle of Wight. Of 570,000 households that lost power, 160,000 were left without it by sunset. About 200 trees fell on railway lines. A crane collapsed on to the roof of the Cabinet Office in Whitehall. A fourth big energy company, of Britain’s six, announced price rises, making the average increase 9.1 per cent. Tony Cocker, the chief executive of E.on, told the Commons energy committee that he had written to David Cameron, the Prime Minister, suggesting a full investigation of the market. A woman intent upon visiting the

Dumpynose

2137: Speculation

Each of two associated words is suggested by four unclued lights (one of two words). Elsewhere, ignore an accent.   Across   1 Tending spiders dope rendered legless (11) 7 Letter goblin sent back (3) 11 Scripture lessons unite flock? (6) 13 Obeser bod perhaps in bed infected by acute respiratory disease (7) 15 I take 70 pictures (5) 16 The ruler’s leading pleasure (5) 17 Otto and John in greaser’s gear? (6) 18 Paddy skinned sausages (5) 20 Letter from Zambia absorbed by little lad and lass (6) 21 German fills empty boat (5) 22 Dish from 17 November rehashed (7) 27 Elderly satyr swaps uniform for English campions?

Andrew Haldane

There’s a revolution — in banking

In 1925 Winston Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, famously declared that he wished to see ‘finance less proud and industry more content’. In the light of the financial crisis, much the same refrain has been heard from policymakers and politicians over the past five years. How are we to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past? And how might the financial sector reinvent itself for the future? I wish to argue there are grounds for optimism. Out of the ashes of the financial crisis a new type of banking is emerging. Old business models are being rewritten and new entrants are driving change. Indeed, it’s possible that the financial

Dumpynose

To 2134: Mere letters

The pairs of anagrams were of countries and their capitals: Dominica & Roseau (2 & 11); Latvia & Riga (20 & 8); Italy & Rome (21A & 35); Algeria & Algiers (27 & 26); Yemen & Sanaa (29 & 31). Title: PURE MAIL (Peru & Lima).   First prize Henry Dove, Farnborough, Hampshire Runners-up J.B. Caldwell, Winster, Windermere; Vincent Clark, Frant, East Sussex

Sebastian Payne

Qualified teacher status – who believes what?

Should pupils in free schools and academies be taught by teachers without Qualified teacher status? This question has become the latest game political ping-pong involving all three parties. So much has been said it’s difficult to know what everyone believes. Here is a summary of where all the key players stand: Tristram Hunt (and Labour) No, well maybe — the Shadow Education Secretary’s position is unclear. In a Daily Mirror interview, Hunt said ‘they have to work towards qualified teacher status or they have to go’. But last night, Jeremy Paxman asked Hunt no less than nine times whether he would send his children to a school with teachers who

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

My views on breast-feeding in public are politically indecent

The Daily Mail has got itself into a bit of a lather over a “young mum” who was asked not to breast feed her baby at a swimming pool in Ashford, Kent. The story is here. As you can see, she apparently got her fecund baps out in the pool itself, before being censured by the pool manager. I think I’m sort of with the pool authorities on this, which perhaps just underlines my lack of modernity and general reactionary nature. Truth be told, I’m not terribly happy about seeing an infant breastfed in a café either. But I suppose the women are right when they reply well, we don’t

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The great irony of the government’s transparency push

David Cameron’s announcement that the government will publish a register of beneficial ownership should make it harder for companies to evade tax. This register of who owns what will make it harder for people to hide their earnings via complex ownership structures. This register of beneficial ownership is all part of the government’s transparency push timed to coincide with the Open Government Partnership. But what will have more of an effect on British voters’ lives than the register of beneficial ownership are the other measures that Francis Maude announced today. Allowing parents to see their child’s record in the national pupil database will give people a far more rounded view

Steerpike Steerpike

Dave’s ‘crimson tide’ is not a family trait

Sky News made history today by broadcasting for the first time ever from inside the Court of Appeal, and Counsel for the Appellant looked familiar. Indeed, it was none other than Alexander Cameron QC, the Prime Minister’s brother. Dave’s florid face evidently runs in the family; but, while the PM is prone to getting rather shouty at the dispatch box (the so-called ‘crimson tide’), Alexander was a model of composure before the bench. Perhaps he might give his little brother some lessons?

Jonathan Foreman

The one good thing we’re leaving in Afghanistan

 Kabul A strange new institution is rising from the dust in the mountains west of Kabul. The foreigners here call it the Sandhurst in the Sand. Those who work at the new British-led military school, which welcomed its first cadets last week, prefer the more cumbersome ‘ANA-OA’, short for Afghan National Army Officers Academy (though the Australians who guard the place call it ‘Duntroon in the Desert’ after their own Sandhurst equivalent). Whichever name sticks, the ‘Afghan Sandhurst’ will be perhaps the only significant British contribution to Afghanistan’s security after the Nato mission finishes at the end of next year. Some see it as a way of making up for